HubSpot's AEO Grader gives you a one-time score across five dimensions — sentiment, presence quality, brand recognition, share of voice, and market position. It's free, takes five minutes, and ends with a CTA to talk to sales. The best HubSpot AEO Grader alternatives go further: they monitor citations daily across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude, surface the prompts your buyers actually use, and tell you what to fix on which page.
If you've already run the grader and want a tool that keeps measuring after the screenshot, here are the eight strongest options in 2026 — pricing verified from each vendor's page on May 6, 2026.
Why teams look past the HubSpot AEO Grader
The free Grader is a lead magnet for HubSpot AEO ($50/month), the paid monitoring product. That's fine if you're already in the HubSpot ecosystem. It's a problem if you're not, or if your visibility work needs more than a monthly check-in:
- One snapshot, no time series. The Grader scores you today. It won't tell you if your share of voice climbed or dropped next week.
- No prompt-level data. You see a score, not the queries that produced it. You can't optimize what you can't see.
- No content-level recommendations. The Grader points at a problem. It doesn't show which page on your site needs to change.
- Three engines. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini. Most paid tools cover six to ten, including Claude, Google AI Mode, AI Overviews, and Grok.
The eight tools below solve at least one of those gaps. Some — like xSeek and AirOps — go past monitoring into content generation, which is where AI visibility actually changes.
Comparison: best HubSpot AEO Grader alternatives 2026
| Tool | Starting price | Engines tracked | Free trial | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| xSeek | $499.99/mo (Starter, 6-mo billing) | 12+ models incl. ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Grok, DeepSeek | Free strategy call | Marketing leads who want clarity + an action plan |
| Otterly.AI | $29/mo (Lite, 15 prompts) | 4 (ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, MS Copilot) | Yes | Solo marketers and budget-first teams |
| Profound | $499/mo (Lite) / $399/mo (Growth) | 3+ engines, full coverage on Enterprise | No | Fortune 500 brands needing custom analytics |
| Peec AI | Pricing on request (Starter / Pro / Advanced) | Choose 3 models per plan | No | B2B / SaaS agencies using Looker Studio |
| Scrunch AI | $250/mo (Starter, annual) | 6 (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, Meta) | No | Mid-market teams running side-by-side competitor benchmarks |
| AirOps | $0 (Insights tier) | 4 paid (Google, Perplexity, OpenAI, Google AI Studio) | Yes | Content teams that want monitoring + execution in one place |
| Athena HQ | $295/mo (Self-Serve) | Up to 8 LLMs | First month 67% off | Agencies billing for AI visibility audits |
| Ahrefs Brand Radar | $398/mo (Select Platforms) | Up to 6 (ChatGPT, AI Overviews, Perplexity, Copilot, Gemini, Grok) | Free AI Visibility Checker | Existing Ahrefs subscribers extending into AI |
1. xSeek — clarity that turns into an action plan
xSeek is built for one specific person: the marketing lead at a 10-200 person company who knows AI is changing search but doesn't know where to start. The HubSpot Grader tells that person their score is 62. xSeek tells them which prompts their buyers ask, which competitors get cited instead, and which page to rewrite this week.
What it tracks: 12+ models including OpenAI gpt-5-nano, Anthropic Claude 3.5 Haiku, Gemini 2.5 Flash, Perplexity Sonar, xAI Grok 4 Fast, and DeepSeek v3.1. Mentions are scored daily; opportunities are clustered by frequency and business value (critical / high / medium).
What's different: xSeek doesn't stop at the dashboard. The Action Plan inside Content Studio surfaces content gaps where competitors get cited and you don't, then generates AI-optimized articles you can push live through the CMS connector. The Claude Code MCP integration lets engineering and content teams generate articles from the terminal — useful for agencies running content for several clients.
Pricing (verified May 6, 2026):
- Starter: $499.99/month ($2,999.99 per 6 months) — 1 website, 50 prompts, 10 opportunities, 5 articles/month
- Growth: $899.99/month ($5,399.99 per 6 months) — 3 websites, 150 prompts, 25 opportunities, 15 articles/month
- Scale: Custom — 10 websites, 500 prompts, 50 opportunities, dedicated AEO strategist, monthly 1:1 sessions
No free trial. xSeek runs a 30-minute strategy call instead — review your current AI profile before any commitment.
Best for: Marketing Leads, Heads of Marketing, and Founders at 10-200 person B2B companies who want to be in control of AI visibility, not delegate it.
2. Otterly.AI — the cheapest way to start monitoring
Otterly.AI is the budget alternative. The Lite plan at $29/month is the cheapest serious monitoring product on this list — and unlike the HubSpot Grader, it tracks daily and gives you historical data.
What it tracks: ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, and Microsoft Copilot. Google AI Mode and Gemini are paid add-ons ($9-$149/month).
Trade-offs: 15 prompts on Lite is enough for one product line, not for a full keyword footprint. The mid-tier Standard plan at $189/month bumps that to 100 prompts and adds the Looker Studio connector — that's the realistic floor for any team beyond a single-product startup.
Pricing (verified May 6, 2026):
- Lite: $29/month — 15 prompts, daily tracking, 1 workspace, 1,000 GEO URL audits/month
- Standard: $189/month — 100 prompts, unlimited workspaces, Looker Studio
- Premium: $489/month — 400 prompts, 10,000 GEO audits
15% discount on annual. Free trial available.
Best for: Solo founders and small in-house teams who want a daily tracking product without a budget conversation.
3. Profound — enterprise-grade, enterprise-priced
Profound is the closest thing to a category leader on G2 for enterprise AI visibility. The Fortune 500 buy it. The pricing reflects that.
What it tracks: ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews on Growth ($399/month). Full coverage of 10+ engines is reserved for the Enterprise tier, which typically lands in the $2,000-5,000+/month range.
Trade-offs: No free trial, no monthly self-serve checkout. You go through sales. Agency Growth at $1,499/month requires $399/month per additional client workspace. If you're a 50-person company looking to replace the HubSpot Grader, this is a category mismatch.
Pricing (verified via vendor & third-party reviews, May 2026):
- Lite: $499/month
- Growth: $399/month — 3 platforms (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews)
- Agency Growth: $1,499/month + $399/month per additional client workspace
- Enterprise: Custom (typically $2,000-5,000+/month for full platform coverage)
Best for: CMOs at 500+ person companies with a procurement process, board-defensible KPIs, and a real budget.
4. Peec AI — built for agencies that live in Looker Studio
Peec AI is the most agency-friendly option on this list. Looker Studio connector on the Advanced plan, unlimited users on every tier, and a UI scraping methodology that pulls citations directly from the LLMs' rendered responses rather than the API.
What it tracks: Pick three models per plan (across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, etc.). The Advanced tier adds multi-country support.
Trade-offs: Pricing isn't published publicly — you'll need to talk to sales for an exact number. Plans are tiered by prompt count (50 / 150 / 350) and project count (1 / 2 / 5).
Pricing (verified May 6, 2026):
- Starter: 50 prompts, 3 models, 1 project — pricing on request
- Pro: 150 prompts, 3 models, 2 projects — pricing on request
- Advanced: 350 prompts, 3 models, 5 projects, multi-country, Looker Studio
- Enterprise: Custom — all models, API access, SSO
Best for: Marketing agencies that already report to clients through Looker Studio.
5. Scrunch AI — competitive benchmarking for mid-market
Scrunch AI is the side-by-side competitor benchmark tool. Its 6-engine coverage and persona-based prompting make it a strong fit for B2B teams that need to prove relative share of voice in front of an executive team.
What it tracks: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Mode and AI Overviews, and Meta. SOC 2 Type II certified.
Pricing (verified May 6, 2026):
- Starter: $250/month (annual) or $300/month — 3 user licenses, 350 custom prompts, 1,000 industry prompts, 3 personas, 5 page audits
- Growth: $417/month (annual) or $500/month — 5 licenses, 700 custom prompts, 2,500 industry prompts, 5 personas, 10 page audits
- Enterprise: Custom — SAML/OIDC, Enterprise Data API, dedicated GTM team
Annual saves 17%. Extra seats: $25/month per user.
Best for: Mid-market B2B teams that need to walk into a quarterly review with a clean competitor benchmark.
6. AirOps — monitoring fused with content production
AirOps is one of the only platforms on this list that ships content as part of the workflow. Track prompts, identify gaps, then generate and publish content from the same product.
What it tracks (paid): Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, OpenAI, and Google AI Studio. Insights (free) covers ChatGPT only.
Trade-offs: AirOps's pricing model has a generous free tier but the paid tiers don't publish dollar amounts on the pricing page — you're routed to a contact form. Insights gives you 1,000 tasks/month for free, which is enough to run a real evaluation before talking to sales.
Pricing (verified May 6, 2026):
- Insights (free): 1,000 tasks/month, 1 user, ChatGPT-only insights, 5 KB sources
- Solo: 100 tracked prompts/pages, ChatGPT-only, 20,000 content tasks
- Pro: 250 tracked prompts/pages, multi-engine, 75,000 content tasks, unlimited seats
- Pages / Enterprise: Custom pricing, dedicated account manager
Best for: Content teams who want monitoring and content production stitched into one workflow.
7. Athena HQ — purpose-built for AI search agencies
Athena HQ is positioned for teams treating GEO and AEO as a primary channel rather than an SEO appendix. The Citation Engine (ACE) on Enterprise is the differentiator — it surfaces the source URLs that drive AI mentions, then ties them back to the queries.
What it tracks: Up to 8 major LLMs.
Pricing (verified May 6, 2026):
- Self-Serve: $295/month (or $95/month annual — 17% off) — 3,600 credits/month (1 credit = 1 AI response), $300/month free credit, unlimited seats with RBAC. First month 67% off promo.
- Enterprise: Custom — Athena Citation Engine, dedicated GEO specialist, SAML/OIDC SSO, API access, multi-country support
Best for: Agencies billing $5k+/month for AI visibility retainers.
8. Ahrefs Brand Radar — for teams already in the Ahrefs ecosystem
Ahrefs Brand Radar layers AI visibility onto the Ahrefs platform. If your SEO team already lives in Ahrefs, this is the lowest-friction add-on. It also includes YouTube, TikTok, and Reddit visibility — useful for brands tracking sentiment beyond LLMs.
What it tracks: ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot, Gemini, and Grok. 243M+ organic prompts in the dataset.
Pricing (verified May 6, 2026):
- Select Platforms: $398/month — choose individual AI platforms
- All Platforms: $699/month — all major LLMs, 2,500 monthly custom prompt checks, plus YouTube, TikTok, Reddit, web visibility
A free AI Visibility Checker preview is available without an Ahrefs account.
Best for: Agencies and in-house SEO teams who already pay for Ahrefs and want one fewer dashboard to log into.
How to choose between these tools
Three questions filter most of the noise.
1. How many people on your team will log in? If it's one or two, Otterly Lite or AirOps Insights gets you 80% of what the HubSpot Grader does, every day, for under $30/month. If it's a 5-person marketing team, you need Standard tier or above on any product on this list.
2. Is content production part of the job? If yes, the field narrows quickly. xSeek and AirOps generate and publish content from the same workflow. The rest stop at recommendations.
3. Who else needs the data? If a CMO presents quarterly to a board, you need clean comparative dashboards (Profound, Scrunch AI, Ahrefs). If your CEO wants weekly progress, you need a tool that ships an action plan (xSeek, AirOps).
A safe path for most mid-market teams: start with the HubSpot AEO Grader to baseline your score. If you've already done that and want to actually move it, run Otterly Lite for the data and a content-first tool (xSeek or AirOps) for the execution. That stack runs at $530-$930/month and replaces the work the Grader can't do.
FAQ
Is the HubSpot AEO Grader free?
Yes. The HubSpot AEO Grader is fully free with no credit card required. It runs once and produces a five-dimension score (sentiment, presence quality, brand recognition, share of voice, market position) plus a written interpretation. The paid product, HubSpot AEO, starts at $50/month and adds ongoing tracking, competitor comparisons, and prompt-level recommendations.
What's the difference between the HubSpot AEO Grader and a paid alternative?
The Grader is a one-time snapshot across three engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini). Paid alternatives like xSeek, Otterly, Profound, and Scrunch AI track six to twelve engines daily, expose the exact prompts behind your score, and recommend page-level changes. Without that data, you can measure your visibility but you can't move it.
What's the cheapest HubSpot AEO Grader alternative?
Otterly.AI Lite at $29/month is the cheapest paid monitoring product, with daily tracking across four engines. AirOps Insights is free for the first 1,000 tasks/month but covers ChatGPT only on the free tier. Both work as a step up from the one-time Grader without a budget conversation.
Which HubSpot AEO Grader alternative covers the most AI engines?
xSeek tracks 12+ models — including OpenAI, Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini, Perplexity, xAI Grok, and DeepSeek — across all plans. Ahrefs Brand Radar All Platforms ($699/month) covers six engines plus YouTube, TikTok, and Reddit. Most other tools land between three and eight engines, with full coverage typically reserved for enterprise tiers.
Which alternative is best for marketing agencies?
Peec AI (Looker Studio connector, unlimited users), Athena HQ (white-label-ready, $95/month annual), and Scrunch AI (5 personas, multi-client benchmarks) are built for agency workflows. Profound's Agency Growth tier ($1,499/month) is the high-end option — strong product, expensive once you scale to 5+ clients ($399/month per workspace).
Can I use a HubSpot AEO Grader alternative alongside HubSpot CRM?
Yes. None of these tools replace HubSpot CRM. Most integrate through CMS connectors (xSeek, AirOps), data warehouses (Peec AI's Looker Studio connector), or APIs (Athena HQ Enterprise, Peec AI Enterprise). You keep your CRM, you swap the visibility tool.
How long does it take to see results from an AEO tool?
Tracking starts within 24-48 hours of setup on most paid tools — Otterly, xSeek, Peec AI, Scrunch AI all run daily checks out of the box. Visible movement in the dashboard takes longer: most teams see meaningful share-of-voice changes after 4-8 weeks of content optimization. Tools that pair monitoring with content production (xSeek, AirOps) compress that timeline because the recommendations turn into published pages inside the same workflow.